


Transit Umbra, Lux Permanet

by brevitas



Series: Leader of the Muses [8]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Greek Gods AU, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brevitas/pseuds/brevitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Grantaire say sorry the only way they know how and a revolution blooms on the horizon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transit Umbra, Lux Permanet

When Dionysus lands it's without grace; he's still in shock and he trips on a curb trying to regain his balance, ends up faceplanting into the sidewalk. He doesn't even know what country he's in but he can vouch that he wouldn't come again; no one helps him, and the one man who comes over to check his head actually steals his wallet. Grantaire can feel him in his pocket (he's not a very good thief), but lets it go--he probably needs it (Hell, maybe he's gonna start a revolution).

He rolls onto his back and, after a few moments, clambers to his feet, his head pounding. He'd split his temple when he fell and it bleeds sluggishly now, carving a rivulet of blood down the side of his face. Grantaire spares a moment to wipe it off lest he scare the natives and then proceeds to question anybody who walks by where he can find some booze.

He doesn't know what language they're speaking past the fact that he doesn't speak it, so he mimes drinking and eventually a young woman points him down the street, smiling and dabbing lightly at his injury with a inquiry of " _Hospital_?"

He shakes his head (he can figure that one out, at least) and thinks she's speaking Spanish so he murmurs, " _Gracias_ ," and she beams.

He finds the bar and has just taken a seat when he hears someone shout, _Dionysus!_  into his right ear, startling him. He sloshes his drink when he jumps and a brunette at the bar glances at him, but apparently figures he's drunk and doesn't ask. He recognizes the voice as Bahorel's and frowns; he darkens farther when Feuilly calls out next, and on its heels is Courfeyrac's half-hearted, _Dionysus?_ like he already knows he won't answer.

Grantaire spends the evening ignoring them and eventually he only gets one or two an hour; it's easier to pretend he can't hear them now, and he even manages to wield a conversation in broken English while Eponine talks in his ear.

He spends the night in the streets but doesn't mind; it's hot here, almost unbearably so, and only cools off when the sun falls and the air becomes stagnant and brittle. He dozes in an alley with his chin on his chest and wakes up when the sunlight slants across his eyes and kickstarts his hangover. Rather than dealing with that he just goes back into the bar and gets another drink, and the alcohol washes the headache away.

Today the calls are more infrequent; apparently someone has soothed the boys, and Grantaire bets bitterly that it's Apollo (probably done with the same grace that he gutted Grantaire, he figures sourly). He drinks again and tries not to listen to Jehan when he says furtively, _Enjolras swears you'll come home, Dionysus. Don't forget us._

_Wish I could_ , Grantaire thinks darkly.

He drinks some more.

+++++

Grantaire spends the next three days in a perpetual state of drunknenness, and makes a game out of ignoring his friends; every time he hears his name he drinks, and drains whatever is closest to him. It does not go unnoticed by him that not once has Enjolras spoken and he tries to ignore this too, decides that if he can only get drunker it will stop hurting.

He makes it through the fourth day and when he settles down to sleep, still dozing outside with the homeless and the desperate, he hears a soft, _Dionysus_.

It sounds almost like he dreamed it and he frowns, wraps his arms around himself and waits. When a minute ticks by, then two, then five, he gives up on it; just because it had sounded tantalizingly similar to Enjolras does not mean that Grantaire is not depressed enough to imagine it.

He sighs and closes his eyes, is balanced right on the precipice on sleep when-- _Dionysus_.

It's quieter this time but Grantaire is able to recognize Enjolras; there is only one person who pronounces his old name like that, with just the softest lilt on the first syllable and a hiss on the last. In his mouth, it sounds musical.

Grantaire is wide awake and the third comes faster, a breathless, _Dionysus_ , spoken like a sigh--and then a half-dozen more follow, the last warm with something Grantaire would be tempted to call desperation had it not been Enjolras speaking.

He's awake for a long time afterward, but he answers none of them and finally falls asleep much later.

+++++

The fifth day he spends thinking, the sixth dawning with an idea. He uses the afternoon to get the supplies he needs, and the seventh day he spends in Egypt.

+++++

Realistically Enjolras cannot stall the revolution because his brother is throwing a temper tantrum, though he tries his damnedest. Combeferre is the one who convinces him to go back to Earth, says with kind eyes and a warm hand on his shoulder that the mortals need him.

It reminds him of his fight with Grantaire and he brushes his knuckles against his bottom lip--but Combeferre is right, and Enjolras has spent enough time moping.

They go down to Egypt on the eighth day of Grantaire's disappearance, and much has happened since Enjolras last walked the city. The people are mobilizing and organizing and he passes many people keying updates into their phones, or crunching numbers into a calculator to figure out how plausible it is to house a few revolutionaries. The masses are smiling at him and Combeferre and they go through the street without violence; many of them recognize Enjolras, and they are fervent when they greet him, brushing fingers against his red coat, the bolder shaking his hand.

It improves his mood exponentionally to be amongst people who need him, and they end up staying for all of the morning and most of the afternoon helping.

At five something changes; there's a thrum in the crowd, an excited murmur winding underfoot, and one man grabs Enjolras and says proudly, "Excellent idea, Enjolras!" He shakes his hand and pumps his arm and Enjolras exchanges a confused look with Combeferre over the lad's head; he has no idea what he's thanking him for, as the only thing Enjolras had been doing was orchestrating the creation of more flyers.

Combeferre taps his shoulder and asks, "What's an excellent idea?" and the man laughs, points at a building across the street. "That'll gather many people," he tells them. "Thank you."

But Enjolras isn't listening anymore because he's on his way to the corner, so he can see what the man was talking so madly about. He needs only to look up when he reaches the far side to understand it, and his chest tightens; painted boldly across the bricks is a dark figure clutching the Egyptian flag and raising it in triumph. He looks as though he just won a mountainous battle and there are celebrating people at his feet, distinguishable by white eyes and exaggerated smiles.

Combeferre slows as he catches up with him, whistles at the work. "When did you have time to do this?" He asks and Enjolras is only standing there, staring at the graffiti with a huge grin on his face. Combeferre frowns and asks, "Enjolras, are you okay?"

"Of course I am," he replies swiftly, and laughs when he looks sidelong at his friend. "Do you not see, Combeferre? This is _Grantaire's_ work. He's here."

Combeferre looks back at the wall and he can see it now, the characteristic style Grantaire uses to embody the ferocity of a crowd, the way he's employed red to create a stark impression on the figure at the front. He shakes his head but he's smiling, says, "I didn't think he'd come."

"I didn't either." Enjolras is looking around but he doesn't see Grantaire anywhere, and frowns a bit at the revelation.

"Maybe he's just going to help on his own terms," Combeferre says gently, noticing his friend's anxious scanning of the crowd, and Enjolras nods, though it's more of a reflexive motion than an actual response. They return to their work and sure enough, the painting attracts newcomers; by dusk there's so many that policemen have been called and they linger at the edges, hands on their batons, making sure there is no violence.

Enjolras and Combeferre call them and the rest of Les Amis come down, scattered amongst the workstations. All of them have seen Grantaire's advertisement and they keep stealing looks at Enjolras, making sure he's fine--but he's still working and he barely even notices, focused as he is on directing their newest members.

Later, when the people have gone home and the Amis have retired to the hotel rooms they've rented, Enjolras sits on his bed and says, "Dionysus." It tumbles on his tongue, a well-worn word, and feels right; he's not expecting a response, and when he gets none he only chuckles and lays back.

"I'll find you soon, Dionysus," he says to the ceiling, smiling when he closes his eyes. "Eventually you'll answer."

Across the city Grantaire sits on a rooftop and laughs, paint smeared wildly on his cheeks, looking more alive then he has for a long time. "We'll see," he answers, and toasts the city spread below him.

+++++

The morning comes with a frantic knocking on Enjolras' door, and when he pulls it open a young man hugs him. "How did you do it?" He asks, looking up at him like their old worshipers used to, full of fire and passion. "This will make them agree to talk!"

Enjolras stares after him because, once again, he's out of the loop, and the man vanishes downstairs before he can ask. Most of the Amis are poking their heads out of the bedrooms, hair ruffled and eyes dark, and Enjolras shrugs when he says, "I think Grantaire did something."

"Get dressed," Combeferre tells them. "We need to see what he's painted now."

They follow the crowd to the Mogamma, Cairo's official governmental building, and the rising sun's light has cast a particularly favorable spotlight onto the masterpiece. Grantaire has painted the entire face of the building the colors of the Egyptian flag and scrawled over them in letters that are at least two storeys long is a sentence in Literary Arabic. The text has been done in reds and golds and reminds Enjolras of the painting he stole from Grantaire, and he laughs when he translates it, shaking his head.

"What does it mean?" Bahorel asks, who certainly doesn't read Arabic, and the other boys expectantly look to Enjolras.

"It means 'Face those you oppress'," he answers, and Feuilly whistles.

"Pretty poetic for Grantaire."

Enjolras chuckles and thinks about when he'd proposed that line to Grantaire a week and a half ago to use as their slogan. He'd been fairly drunk at the time and Enjolras is surprised that Grantaire even remembers it in English, let alone a language he can't even write without aid, but he recognizes what this is.

The Amis talk around him and Enjolras says quietly under his breath, "I'm sorry too, Dionysus."

This is a game they developed when Grantaire was just a young man and new to the gods and Mount Olympus. He and Enjolras had quickly discovered that a friendship between them would be impossible without a few fights here and there, so after their first huge argument, Grantaire had come up with a way to say sorry without having to really say it at all.

He'd leave a drawing outside Enjolras' door, something simple; usually they were quotes from Enjolras that Grantaire liked, or a little illustration of Enjolras in a certain light or outfit. Enjolras kept all of them and whenever he'd see Grantaire afterward he'd ruffle his hair and say that he was sorry too. It worked for them, gave Grantaire a method to express his regret without strictly saying it, and allowed Enjolras to be the second one to apologize (he was much too proud to be the first, after all).

Grantaire stands a ways behind them and laughs at the voice in his ear, takes a sip of his beer and turns to walk through the crowd. No one notices one curly-haired man with a bottle in his hand and only one girl hears him when he responds. "Thank you, Apollo. Best work yet."

Electricity shoots down Enjolras' spine when Grantaire's voice interrupts his thoughts and he spins around; he knows that Grantaire is not even thirty feet away and watches as a man with red paint on his hands lifts a beer bottle in a mock salute and vanishes. The people do not see it and Enjolras turns back to the building, trying not to smile and failing miserably. "Does this mean we've finished fighting, Dionysus?"

Grantaire has landed on a rooftop thirteen miles over and sits down, drains his beer bottle with a smirk. "Not yet," he replies. "Just one more thing to do."

**Author's Note:**

> title means "shadow passes, light remains" which I liked because I thought it was really cute and sad all my creys
> 
> okay so I actually had to be research for this chapter because apparently I know absolutely nothing about Egypt? and I still don't really so please forgive me if things are wrong I'm sorry  
> p.s. if they are wrong please tell me so I don't look like a complete jackass and I shall try to fix it
> 
> hope you guys like this one, it is a light before the angst of next chapter so enjoy
> 
> kisses to everybody, shout-out to Sherrie_H this time because she (he? ugh I hate not knowing people's genders) is a darling and always comments!
> 
> tumblr is idfaciendumest is you'd like to follow, I'm fairly boring btw but I love asks!


End file.
